Joshua Fulgham Gets Life

A man convicted of killing his wife will spend the rest of his life in jail.

Joshua Fulgham was given two consecutive life sentences Wednesday afternoon.

A Marion County judge followed a jury's recommendation to send Joshua Fulgham away to prison for life, sparring him from the death penalty.

"You simply do not know when you pick a jury the make up and composition of that jury," State Attorney Brad King told TV20.

Fulgham and his then-girlfriend, Emilia Carr are former lovers.

Both have now been convicted of killing Fulgham's wife, Heather Strong back in 2009.

According to detectives, Fulgham lured his wife to Carr's house in Boardman where they tied her to a chair, put a bag over her head and suffocated her.

They buried Strong in the back yard.

Throughout Fulgham's trial, jury members heard as he told detectives they put Strong's body in a black bag.

"We took a duffel bag, and laid it right beside her. Emilia grabbed the left leg, I grabbed a leg and we both held one side of the bag and put her down into it," Fulgham told Marion County Sheriff's DetectiveDonald Buie.

But despite the taped confessions, jury members recommended a life sentence for Fulgham after finding him guilty of First Degree Murder and Kidnapping.

His attorney claimed he was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of his sister.

But State Attorney Brad King did obtain the death penalty for Carr, a mother of four who was also sexually abused.

"Emilia Carr's upbringing, her mental status and Joshua Fulgham's was different," King said.

Fulgham's jury consisted of nine women and three men, with studies showing women being more hesitant than men to impose a death sentence.

But now that Fulgham and Carr are behind bars, King says he will walk away with one thing, "There is no bottom to the depth of depravity of what human beings can do to each other, and that's the truth," King said.

Heather Strong's mother and brother were not there for Fulgham's sentencing Wednesday, traveling back home to Mississippi.

The two children belonging to Fulgham and Strong were placed in foster care, But Fulgham and Carr allegedly also had a child together.

Emilia Carr was seven months pregnant with that child when she and Fulgham killed Heather Strong.